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Monitoring instruction is an essential practice found in exemplary schools. Supervisors responsible for this activity must develop an efficient system to accomplish this important task. Conducting classroom walkthroughs enables supervisors to observe teachers and students during the instructional process. Although observing the process provides supervisors with information about instruction, how do they know if students are learning or if the instruction is targeted to required curriculum goals? During the formal observation process, often a pre-conference is conducted that provides the supervisor with the goals and strategies of the lesson to be observed. The supervisor stays for an extended period of time to determine if the goals discussed in the pre-conference have been accomplished. The lesson is later discussed in a post-conference environment and conclusions about the effectiveness of the instruction are established. The informal classroom walkthrough provides a different set of parameters. How can a supervisor determine if students are learning and if the instruction is aligned to the specific course objectives?

Lesson essential questions and the corresponding assessment prompts can provide the supervisor with a quick understanding of the lesson goals. As the supervisor walks through the classroom, the posted essential question will provide the overall lesson objective. The assessment prompts will establish what the student will be learning as the lesson unfolds. Effective use of the assessment prompts requires the teacher to distribute the prompts throughout the lesson. These assessment prompts are used to frame opportunities for the teacher to allow the student to summarize the knowledge or practice the skill embedded in the lesson. Each prompt provides an opportunity for the teacher to utilize one of the teaching strategies with the students, actively engaging students in a thinking or practice strategy, and serves as a formative assessment regarding student progress. The teacher can monitor student responses to the prompts to determine if students have mastered the content or if alternative instruction must be provided before moving on in the lesson. Because assessment prompts are distributed throughout the lesson, the supervisor can stay in the classroom until a prompt is used. Observing this component of the lesson helps the supervisor to determine if students are learning or, if not, what alternative strategies were employed by the teacher to assist students to develop the required level of understanding.

Assessment prompts should be distributed throughout the lesson. Employment of the assessment prompts should occur as each 'chunk' of learning concludes or they should be coordinated with students' length of attention span. As a result, supervisors conducting classroom walk-throughs should observe a minimum of one prompt and corresponding student engagement each 8-12 minutes. A quick review of the teacher's lesson plan will provide the supervisor with both the lesson essential question and the assessment prompts aligned to the learning goal. Supervisors reviewing this information prior to or during the walk-through will provide them with a quick but clear snapshot of the instructional goals and the identified essential content. It also provides an opportunity for the supervisor to observe students actively engaged as they address the assessment prompts utilizing the activity selected by the teacher.

Refer to Connecting Exemplary Practices in Acquisition Lessons for more information on assessment prompts.

                                          

Research supports writing across the curriculum as a means of raising student achievement in all disciplines. Schools that have shown significant increases in student achievement have consistently focused on nonfiction writing. (Doug Reeves, 2006). Students write for various reasons, for different audiences, and from different perspectives.  In order for students to produce quality writing product is imperative that we teach them how to organize and pace themselves to effectively meet state writing standards. Narrative, expository, persuasive, and descriptive writing prompts are great ways to prepare students for formal and informal assessments.
 
Narrative writing is one type of writing that is consistently required of students on state-mandated tests. The characteristics of narrative writing are as follows:  tells a story, has a beginning, middle, and end, includes events and actions, contains descriptive, interesting details, creates a tone or mood, shares/expresses a point of view, and has a good organizational flow connected with transitional words. Students need multiple opportunities to experience narrative writing. Practice and preparation for narrative writing allows students to feel competent and confident in their ability to produce work of good quality. Narrative writing prompts will vary depending on the age and grade level of students. Examples of narrative writing prompts are -
 

• Think of a time when you got in trouble and write a story about it. Be sure to include the lesson learned.
• Image you are a specific type of rock.  Write a story to describe your journey from the earth's core to the earth's surface.
• Imagine that you woke up one morning and you were a jungle animal. Choose an animal and write a story to describe your day as the animal.
• You have been studying westward movement. Write a story about one day in your life as you were traveling in the wagon train.
• You are a rain drop. Write a story describing your journey as you traveled through the water cycle.
• Choose your favorite community helper - doctor, nurse, policeman, fireman, etc. Write a story about your most exciting day.

             
As you can see there are endless possibilities for narrative writing.  Narrative writing can easily be used for students to creatively express facts, ideas, and information of new concepts learned.  Continue to encourage, teach, support, and provide opportunities for students to experience narrative writing on a consistent, pervasive basis in your classroom.  Happy writing!!!!   

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